Follow Your Dreams
Have you ever had a dream that has come true? Have you somehow managed to glimpse into the future whilst you were asleep? If so, you are not alone. Studies suggest that about 1 in 4 people have had a precognitive dream at some point in their lives, with a recent survey suggesting that figure could be as high as 60%. Although premonition in dreams is notoriously hard to prove, if you have had it happen to you, then you are clearly going to be more convinced by the phenomenon.
I’ve had it happen to me several time in my life and once recently I was even able to produce proof that it can happen with the help of a betting slip! It was May last year and as a long-suffering Tottenham fan I was quite excited when my team managed to get to a European final for the first time in over forty years. The night before the match I had a very clear dream that Tottenham were going to win 1-0 and Brennon Johnson was going to be our scorer. When I awoke, the dream was still very clear in my mind and although I’m not normally a betting man I thought I’d check the odds and at 40 to 1, I thought it was worth a flutter. At some point during the first half, it looked as though our opponents Man Utd had scored an own goal but as the camera zoomed in it showed the ball just grazing the toe of Brennon Johnson and he was awarded the goal. Against all odds (well 40 to 1) Tottenham managed to hold on for the 1-0 win and I was a winner at the bookies.
I’m not sure how a sceptic would try and explain this, but they’d probably pass it off as just a coincidence. I however I feel that there must be more to it than that. The chances of this scoreline and scorer were slim but clearly possible at 40 to 1. But what must have the chances been of me having that dream the night before? I have had a million dreams in the past, but I’ve never had one about a football match, let alone one which gave such specific and accurate details. The actual probabilities must have been astronomical. So, what is going on here?
The modern Western perspective of dreams is heavily influenced by psychologists such as Freud and Jung, and dreams are largely seen as a kind of night-time therapy. It is thought that when we are asleep the mind is able process daily stresses, integrate memories and shine a light on our sub-conscious feelings. But that doesn’t explain how we might dream of the future.
The Chinese medical view on dreams is slightly more complex as our soul is seen to be fragmented and spread throughout the various organs. Dreams are seen as a way that our organs can communicate with our higher soul and are largely split into two types, Po dreams and Hun dreams. The Po are the aspect of our consciousness that resides in our Lungs and are known as the Earthly spirits. They are very much of this dimension and are involved with the tangible day to day living of life. Po dreams therefore are generally of this ilk, organising and making sense of daily experiences, in a way probably not too dissimilar to the Freudian theories. The Hun on the other hand reside in our Liver and they are known as the Heavenly spirits. They are the aspect of our consciousness that communicates with the realms of ‘heaven’ or the finer frequencies. The Hun are particularly active at night and Hun dreams communicate to us divine information through imagery and symbolism.
So, what of my prophetic football dream then? Surely there can be nothing more mundane, more of this earth than a football match. This would indicate the involvement of the Po. But the fact that I accurately dreamt of the future meant that the Hun were also involved, as their very nature is to transcend space and time. It’s intriguing that they bothered to concern themselves with something so trivial as a Tottenham match – or maybe they were just trying to get me to write this article so that you too might take a punt on your dreams.